Inspire Pro: One Heck of a Start-Up

One of the coolest things about the iPad is its nearly unbridled potential to allow the creative mind to expand and grow. In fact, since its invention, it’s helped many more than just one digital artist practice, perfect, or otherwise bloom on the go. And all of this, of course, is due in part to killer painting applications like Inspire Pro, by KiwiPixel. The app is currently on sale for only $0.99 in comparison to the usual eight and as such, is one of the best digital painting bargains out there. It’s got a lot of room to grow, but if you’re tired of the more “stock” painting apps on the iPad, it’s easily your next best bet. For our full thoughts on this great artistically-oriented app, check below beyond the break!

Concept and Functionality

If you’ve ever played around with any other form of painting app on the iPad, then you have a fairly good handle on how Inspire Pro behaves. The user is given a selection of five natural, simulated brushes to paint with. These brushes can be edited for any number of variables, including opacity and hue. To use them, the painter simply drags a finger along the digital canvas, which comes in two, fairly standard web dimension varieties. The iPad simulates a brush stroke, including a lack of paint at the very end. Added to this, you can also use a variety of scrapers and blenders to achieve better colors in your paintings. All in all, it’s a basic affair, but that’s not a bad thing. All of the brushes and features you could want are readily available, and without the pompous fanfare we tend to see in other painting apps.

That being said, we would have loved some layers. Of course, the app has chosen to go for a more natural appeal, but we’d still like the option to utilize our digital media to its fullest extent.

Design and Layout

Inspire Pro for iPad

With any app of this nature, the layout is perhaps the most important part of the total experience, next to the actual brush presentation. With that in mind, it’s clear the developers have thought a lot about this. All the buttons you’d need are kept along the sides in an unobtrusive way, but are easily accessible. We had no problem grabbing brushes, adjusting colors and hues, or even undoing an accidental tap. It’s all quite fluid, and though it may not be the coolest interface we’ve ever seen in a painting app, it’s certainly beyond functional.

Overall Value

We’ll put it to you this way: At eight dollars, Inspire Pro is an unbelievable bargain and a must-have for any digital painter. Even if you’d just like to play with it before going back to your stock app, it’s easily worth its weight in painting goal.

Inspire Pro requires iOS 3.2 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. A small expedite fee was paid by the developer to speed up the publication of this review.